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This is so on point. About a year ago I was thinking of opening a company and selling digital products with Stripe in Japan (where I live). They offered a quick
by franciscop 5y ago
This is so on point. About a year ago I was thinking of opening a company and selling digital products with Stripe in Japan (where I live). They offered a quick free call to answer my questions, and I did so. I am not fluent in Japanese so any help I'm offered I take it, and I wanted to know how many other troubles I could face at this endeavor.
All my questions were answered promptly and greatly by them, and I was getting more and more convinced to do it. Until I asked, "Stripe handles sales taxes, right?" and the answer was "no". They gave me a brief overview of how that works though. Let me tell you I know why you don't see an "Amazon of Japan", apparently in here I'd have to calculate the sales taxes for every country where my products are sold through agreements of Japan-{said country}. Some countries don't even have agreements like Brazil so they are in a gray area.
It seems like Stripe Tax might be a game changer for this specific situation! I'm not ready right now personally/professionally to try to do the company, but let's see in 6 months - 1 year. I am so jubilant!
PS, this is from a quick conversation I had ~1 year ago, so some small details might be fuzzy/outdated/incorrect. Ofc this is no legal or accountant or any kind of advice, just my experience.
- eloisant 5y ago> Let me tell you I know why you don't see an "Amazon of Japan", apparently in here I'd have to calculate the sales taxes for every country where my products are sold through agreements of Japan-{said country}. Some countries don't even have agreements like Brazil so they are in a gray area. AFAIK this is true for any other country, not just Japan. If you're in US, and you want to sell and ship products outside of US, you need to take care of the sales taxes and customs for each of the countries you ship. Or you leave the burden to your customers, but they might not be happy to have to pay expensive custom to the mailman to get their package.
- franciscop 5y agoApparently it's either not a requirement or not so strongly enforced in the US and EU as it is in Japan, or that was my understanding from the conversation. Update: searching a bit and reading about the EU sales taxes, there are few rules but overall it's pretty clear you either don't pay or pay local sales taxes even for international sales for low-volume B2C sales (sorry it's Spanish): https://www.carrilloasesores.com/post/iva-de-ventas-por-internet-o-comercio-electronico https://www.carrilloasesores.com/post/iva-de-ventas-por-inte...
- Naga 5y agoIn Canada, it is a requirement to self-assess GST on purchases you make online. When you buy something online, you're supposed to fill out a form and mail a cheque to the government for the GST you should have paid on it. That being said, this is completely unenforced as well as unenforceable. Also, if you ask basically anyone in Canada they probably would have no idea this was a rule, but the rules are the rules. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/publications/b-079/self-assessment-hst-on-supplies-brought-into-a-participating-province.html#5 https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publi...